Viborg Men: Humble Attitude

For the first time ever, the male handball team of Viborg HK are in the Champions League. A wild card allowed them to play qualification matches against Turkish champions, Besiktas Istanbul. If Viborg manage to take the hurdle, the team goes to Group E where Russian champion Chehovskie Medvedi, German runner-up HSV Hamburg and Ukrainian champion Motor Zaporozhye are waiting.

However, Viborg coach Søren Hildebrand wants to deal with only one issue at a time. “We are approaching this new challenge with humble attitude and concentrate first of all on the qualification matches against Besiktas. I know them as a great football club, but I do not know what priority handball gets there,” Søren Hildebrand told Eurohandball.com.

“I noticed that the team seems to include only Turkish players, many of them Turkish internationals. I’m still not sure of the level of my own team after all the changes, it has gone through during the summer, but based on the normal difference between Turkish and Danish handball, I think we should be able to beat them. We will have to take a comfortable lead at home, as Istanbul in early September may be a hot place,” Hildebrand added.

Outsiders in group stage

“If we manage to qualify for the first group stage, I see think we have slight chance: I consider Chehovskie Medvedi and Hamburg to be the two strongest teams, while we may have chances against Zaporoshye. We may have a chance to qualify for the 1/8 finals of the Cup Winners’ Cup with a third place, but we have to remember that as we come from Pot 4, we are the outsiders in the group. Nevertheless, we are looking forward to this challenge. We hope to bring teams such as Medvedi and Hamburg bring to Denmark for our spectators. We will have a chance to know these teams by then, as we meet both of them in training tournaments before the start of the season,” Søren Hildebrand said.